I am the founder and CEO of GirlQuake and the author of the Forbes book “Their Roaring Thirties: Brutally Honest Career Talk From Women Who Beat The Youth Trap.” I was at start-up, speed-up and stay #1 companies in both digital and traditional media, and the executive producer of the inaugural Forbes Women’s Summit. I serve on the boards of female-led organizations and I’m on numerous “people to watch” lists including 21 Leaders For The 21st Century and 40 Women To Watch Over 40. To learn more about me, follow me @deniserestauri.

Gen E: The Entrepreneur's Goal -- Transfer Power From Someone Else To You

This post is part of the “Generation Entrepreneur” series featuring 20 and 30-something women who are participating in the Forbes Women’s Summit: The Entrepreneurship of Everything. They’re challenging the status quo, taking action and redefining power.

Deepti Sharma Kapur (27), CEO & Founder, FoodtoEat by day, and a strong advocate of women in tech, girls in STEM and access to quality education for all.

What does the Entrepreneurship of Everything mean to you?

It’s the idea that there is no boundary to innovation. Previous eras were defined by a few major advancements – the industrial age and the assembly line, the technology age and the computer – but the innovation age is instead based on using these previous technologies and applying them to everyday things. From a productivity app that reminds us what groceries to pick up at the store, to building a solar-powered LED light bulb as an efficient alternative to kerosene lamps for impoverished families in rural India, we are now in an age of limitless scope for our innovation and entrepreneurship. This is the time where we can look at any existing product or social dynamic and come up with our own idea on how to improve on it. That’s the power of the entrepreneurship of everything.

How does being an entrepreneur redefine power?

Entrepreneurship is the ultimate expression of trying to change the status quo and redefine power. Whether you are addressing a perceived need in a market that is ignored by larger competitors, or tackling some of society’s most pressing issues, you are transferring power from someone else’s and into your own. At FoodtoEat we are building a more sustainable online ordering platform for restaurants, food trucks and caterers. Other services charge them 15-20% on average per order – a large chunk of what they need to just keep afloat. We’re trying to change the online ordering status quo and transfer power back to the restaurants, and in the process help them continue to deliver the food they love to make to our communities.

What entrepreneurial actions are you taking?

We’ve seen the challenges for FoodtoEat from day one by competing against a large-scale operator that already has a convenient service for consumers. The power of our entrepreneurship lies in our innovation on top of the ground-work they’ve already developed, beyond the simple addition of some small-scale improvements. We are building a collaborative food community – a long-term vision for how we think the world should be, beyond a simple fix of what our competitors are doing. We want our users to get the food they love, but also understand how each of our actions affects the broader ecosystem. The world of online food ordering is especially susceptible to this; we depend on our favorite restaurants to provide good food and comfort, just as they depend on us to keep coming back for more.

We also bring entrepreneurship in-house by partnering with organizations like Girls Who Code to find enthusiastic students who want to get a head start on being an entrepreneur. We teach our coders and other employees to “pay it forward” by mentoring these kids to come up with their own problems they want to solve, and empower them with the experience and belief to help them achieve their goals. It’s an important program for us and it’s something we’ve already learned a great deal from – these students have not just further developed their own skills and knowledge, but actually play a crucial part in helping us drive our business forward.

Beyond my own company, I am always looking for ways to be entrepreneurial. One of the things I am most proud of is my role in the Big Brother / Big Sisters program. It’s a way for me to become actively involved in another person’s life and help provide a support structure that I was blessed with at their age – someone to guide me and push me to not just achieve success, but to legitimately pursue my passions. While my parents and teachers did encourage me to do well in school, what I really credit with helping me become a full-fledged entrepreneur was the belief in taking that first step. While failure does cross my mind (will my business be a success? what happens if I fail?), they instilled a belief in me that to be afraid of the unknown is the ultimate form of failure. Similarly, I want to encourage my Little Sister to pursue her passions, and to ultimately have the courage to just take that first step.

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